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| available through The Wild Rose Press, Late fall, 2012 |
Yippie-kye-aye! One of the favorite stories I've ever written, Christmas for Ransom, will be released as a singleton next holiday time! This fun story of a good-hearted outlaw was part of a four-book "Lawmen and Outlaws" anthology in 2010, but now has been given a life all its own. It's a tad spicy in spots, for outlaw "Canyon" Jack Ransom and schoolmarm Eliza Willows find them snowbound in a blizzard...
Pretty usual stuff. What isn't usual is...to honor his deathbed to to his gram-maw, Jack hires the lovely 'marm to teach him to read. Unbeknownst to either of them it's Eliza's gram-maw he just robbed....
Here's an excerpt:
Pinching herself, Eliza lost
interest in everything except seeing what the stranger looked like in the
lantern light. Brawny stalwart men were nothing new in a railroad town or on
the ranch, but she never minded a good view.
Her breath caught so hard her sore
rib tweaked. He was magnificent. The big-brimmed hat and flowing duster
reckoned him a wrangler of some sort coming in from the range. Although he
needed a bath and truly looked the worse for wear, she didn’t mind one single
bit. The scruffy cheeks, the long rag-taggle coat, even the scent of masculine
sweat were far more her style than the slick-haired dandies and overdressed
fops she’d met at Boston cotillions.
“This here’s Ransom,” the
blacksmith said helpfully.
As the stranger moved closer, he removed
his hat and tucked it under his arm with a polite half-nod. For a long luscious
moment, eyes the color of manly liquor covered her with a mouth-watering gaze.
Golden-brown hair touched the mountains of his shoulders like sunlight at dawn
across the Guadalupe Mountains.
Air left her lungs. A slow burn
started at the top of her spine, her flesh desperate for the days’ worth of
roughness adorning cheekbones carved like crags and valleys. She had to hold
her hand still to keep her fingers from caressing the deep etches of his face.
Eliza couldn’t move as she stared
up at him, aching and eager.
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